The Renaissance of the North: The Art of Portraiture

The Renaissance of the North: The Art of Portraiture

In the National Gallery, portraiture in fifteenth century Netherlandish Art includes a majority of donors’ portraits in altarpieces and portrait diptychs (some independent portraits were originally designed to form part of a portrait diptych, adjacent to a religious image). A new rising class of rich merchants, bankers and intellectuals were based in key trading centres such as Bruges and Antwerp which were at the heart of European culture under the ruling of the Burgundian Court. With this ...

In the National Gallery, portraiture in fifteenth century Netherlandish Art includes a majority of donors’ portraits in altarpieces and portrait diptychs (some independent portraits were originally designed to form part of a portrait diptych, adjacent to a religious image). A new rising class of rich merchants, bankers and intellectuals were based in key trading centres such as Bruges and Antwerp which were at the heart of European culture under the ruling of the Burgundian Court. With this shift in social status, the successful middle-class was able to commission portraits that had been until then more exclusively available to the Court and its circle. Jan van Eyck was one of the first painters to depict this growing social diversity. With the use of oil painting, likeness in portraits developed into a very popular genre. How were these portraits conceived, viewed and understood in Northern Europe? What happened in Italy at the same time? In this talk, we discuss how portraiture is one of the greatest achievements of Renaissance art by exploring some of the most iconic portraits of the Northern Renaissance.

£185 per person

Tours commence at 10am and conclude by 5pm.

The price includes the services of your lecturer, two tea/coffee breaks and a two-course lunch with wine, water and coffee.